TV review: Britain's Favourite Supermarket Foods
Sometimes you can't help but wish that the BBC would issue a rebate on the TV License as an apology for airing shows that absorb an hour of your life that you'll never get back.
Mind you, even with payment I'm certain that last night's episode of Britain's Favourite Supermarket Foods would have still been a painful experience.
Yes, much like those university studies that tell us that if you stub your toe it may well hurt, Britain's Favourite… was an exercise in confirming what we already know.
Amongst other things it confirmed two main points: the BBC is gradually nose-diving into pumping out 'factual' programming to pad out the schedule à la Channel 4 and that the people who belly dance are not the people who you would ever actually want to see belly dancing.
You'd think after the whole horsemeat debacle the time would be ripe for a hard-hitting investigation into the food we consume on a daily basis. You'd think that, at least. But no, Cherry Healey was on a mission to show us the good side of what we shove down our gullets.
And thus did our overjoyed presenter – besides providing enough statistics to give a bureaucrat a wet-dream – let us into some hitherto closely-guarded secrets such as: porridge is made from oats (cheers, Cherry, for a moment there I thought it was made from MDF and the tears of an Ibex), nuts are high in fat, and that soup is a good starter.
Quick, someone send an urgent telegram to head chefs around the country, I think she may be onto something with that last one.
Maybe after this someone could set Cherry onto sorting out the economy? Or possibly solving the mystery of what happens to every-other sock in between putting it in and taking it out of the washing machine?
Over sixty minutes, Cherry Healey's gurning, over-enthusiastic expressions and elocution made me wonder if I'd switched onto CBBC or the CCTV stream for a children's nursery, such was her patronising banter. That continual emphasis on every syllable effectively made every sentence sound halfway between a phonics lesson and William Shatner having a seizure.
I'd be willing to accept shows like this migrating from BBC3 if it meant the channel returned to its former identity as the home of edgy comedy but sadly it's now just a dumping ground for shows that don't quite fit anywhere else.
From the ground up this was an entirely flawed programme. The stats were ludicrous – who does it serve to know that we eat enough pasta to fill Leeds Town Hall twice over? Who doesn't know that eating slower makes you feel full?
Truly, if evil is banal then Satanists should start worshipping Cherry Healey because you can't get much more banal than asking questions like "how often do you eat sandwiches?" to an office-worker and trumpeting inconclusive experiments about yoghurt.
We the viewing public deserve better. Let's not forget that unlike its competition, the BBC doesn't have to kowtow to populist programming to grab advertisers.
All in all, the show was so mind-bogglingly dumb I felt IQ points dropping off as the minutes passed. In fact it is shows like this that caught the ire of Brian Sewell last month with his scathing condemnation of the BBC's factual output as dumbed-down and patronising to viewers. Even this show, as per Sewell's criticism, forced an unnecessary travelogue element to the formula.
Besides showing off a delightful red skirt, I'm still not entirely sure what her dawdling around Cambridge actually accomplished.
"Next time…" she droned. Oh please, let that be an empty threat.
Robert James Taylor
